The Science Behind High-Quality Colored Pencils

Professional-grade colored pencils, like Faber-Castell's, offer superior quality and performance, justifying their higher price.

### The Art and Science Behind Professional Colored Pencils
* 🎨 Every colored pencil begins as **bright, powdery pigment**, but the transformation into colorful cores involves a **secret recipe** that differentiates professional pencils from student-grade ones.
* 💰 Professional-grade colored pencils, such as a set of 120 Faber-Castell Polychromos, can cost around **$350**, significantly more than cheaper alternatives like Crayola, which highlights the **stark difference in quality**.
* 🔬 The production of high-quality colored pencils is a precise science, where Faber-Castell produces **2.3 billion pencils annually**, using pigments that require **specific particle sizes for optimal performance**.
* 🧪 The unique combination of oils, waxes, and fillers used in professional pencils results in a **bespoke formula for each color**, ensuring a **consistent texture and vibrant application**.
* ✏ After being formed into cores, these pencils undergo rigorous quality testing to ensure durability, with Faber-Castell's cores designed to **withstand at least 3.3 kilograms of pressure without breaking**.
* 🌈 Artists like Bethany Vere rely on the **superior blendability** of professional pencils to create realistic portraits, emphasizing that cheaper brands often lead to undesirable effects like **wax bloom**.
* 📏 The vast range of shades available in professional pencils allows for **subtle gradations and realistic details**, essential for artists aiming for **high-quality work that lasts**.
* 🌞 The longevity of colors, or lightfastness, is crucial for artists, with Faber-Castell's **three-star rated colors promising minimal fading over time**, justifying the higher price due to **extensive research and development**.

Why Professional Colored Pencils Are So Expensive | So Expensive | Business Insider

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Professional colored pencils are made from a carefully chosen mix of pigments, waxes, and oils, resulting in a significant price difference from student-grade ones.

Faber-Castell's factory in Germany produces 2.

3 billion pencils a year, using precise particle sizes and a unique blend of ingredients to create consistent textures and vibrant colors.

The production process involves high pressure, baking, and a special wax dip, with professional pencils having larger cores to reduce breakage.

The Process of Making High-End Colored Pencils

The company tests pencil cores for durability, applying pressure at a 60-degree angle, with a minimum force of 3.

Different brands have unique core characteristics, with Caran d'Ache's soft wax base for gradients and Faber-Castell's harder core for fine lines.

The pencil-making process involves carefully selecting and drying cedar wood, milling grooves, gluing planks, and applying a water-based varnish for a luxurious finish, while also ensuring visual quality through thorough inspections.

Bethany's Layering Technique for Blending

Bethany creates a blending effect through layering, focusing on the subtle changes in an equestrian portrait.

She struggles with cheaper colored pencils, like Crayola, which require excessive pressure and layers, leading to a waxy bloom.

In contrast, expensive pencils allow for seamless layering and smooth blending, enabling her to achieve the desired gradation in her animal portraits.

The Importance of Shade Variety and Lightfastness in Colored Pencils

Professional-grade colored pencils provide a wider variety of shades, making it easier for artists to achieve subtle hues.

Cheaper pencils often lack neutral colors and offer only vibrant shades.

The longevity of a color, or its lightfastness, is crucial for artists, with Faber-Castell using a star rating system to indicate how well a color will preserve its vibrancy over time.

Faber-Castell's Polychromos line of pencils undergoes a specialized lightfastness test and costs five times more to produce than student-grade pencils.

The company's investment in research and development results in a higher price tag, which they believe is justified.

Bethany, an artist, values the quality and consistency of the Polychromos pencils for her realistic portrait business and has gradually expanded her collection to become indispensable for her work.